SageTV vs. Sageservice

[cjalphonso]

I had my system setup using the desktop SageTV icon. Everything was working including my HD200, all seemed to be good. I went ahead and started the Sagetvservice. Once I did this I had to go through the entire setup process again including adding tunner, scan channels etc. I had to do this on both the local machine and the hd200. Is this correct? I thought once I configured the desktop ui I could simply start the service and be good to go. Am I doing something wrong or is this normal.
Thanks

[gplasky]

That is the way it works. You're doing nothing wrong. It's a one time setup for either way you run it.

Gerry

[Opus4]

It is not normal that you would need to reconfigure tuners & everything after switching to service mode. After switching to service mode, the most you should have to do is reconfigure some of the UI options for the server's UI -- or, if the Configuration Wizard shows you tuner config options, your existing tuners should still be listed as already configured.

It sounds to me like perhaps you are using Windows Vista (among the things about your system you should include when posting about an issue) and the service & UI were run under different settings such that one stored its properties in the VirtualStore & the other did not.

- Andy

[cjalphonso]

This is a new install under windows 7. I havn't had much time to tinker with it yet, but what your saying is once I get it reconfigured in server mode I should be good to go from now on as long as I use it under the server, is this correct?
I built this new machine to be a Sage only machine so I will always be running under the server mode.

As a side note, if I disable the server part it does see the original configuration so it must be doing as you say.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by cjalphonso

This is a new install under windows 7. I havn't had much time to tinker with it yet, but what your saying is once I get it reconfigured in server mode I should be good to go from now on as long as I use it under the server, is this correct?

Yup, what happens when you run Sage the first time in "application" mode is you run through the configuration and Sage stores that information to the sage.properties file, this is where all the backend setup (tuners etc) live.

When you switch to service mode, the service continues using the sage.properties file, but the UI is really running as a client now, so it uses the "sageclient.properties" file to save it's configuration info. Since that file doesn't exist from your initial setup (you setup the "server" or maybe "service" config) you are prompted to run setup again, but as Andy notes, all your tuner info should already be there, the only things that should need redoing are the UI properties.

Now UAC (on Vista and 7) can throw a wrench into that, since they cause those properties files to go to "weird" places. It sounds like what happened was you configured Sage as your logged in user, and Windows placed your properties file in a location for that user, then when you enabled the service, which by default runs as LocalSystem (not your user) Windows chose a different location to put the properties file and thus Sage couldn't find your original config.

If you search the forum there should be some info that should point you to where the first set of properties files got put and you should be able to just copy that to the final location and not have to redo your tuner setup again.

As a side note, if I disable the server part it does see the original configuration so it must be doing as you say.

If you disable the service, yes it should find your original config.

[cjalphonso]

Thanks for the help. I don't mind reconfiguring it as this is pretty much a new install anyway and I hadn't tweaked it yet.
One last question: If I run it as a service and I setup my local UI, will my hd200 and future hd200's pick up this same UI? I'll also be putting SageMC into the picture soon as well and want to make sure that all will see the same UI.

Thanks again, I skipped over Vista and went straight from xp to 7 so I have a
slight learning curve.

[gplasky]

Sorry I didn't explain my short answer this morning.

By default UAC is enabled both in Vista and Windows 7. If SageTV is run as an application then the .properties file is stored in the logged on users virtual store directory. If the user decides just to enable the SageTV service then by default the service is started by the localsystem user account. This account is NOT associated with any logged-on user account. It has extensive privileges on the local computer, and acts as the computer on the network. Its token includes the NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM and BUILTIN\Administrators SIDs; these accounts have access to most system objects.

So on Vista and Win 7 with UAC enabled the LocalSystem ID has the rights to write the .properties file to the C:\Program Files\SageTV directory. When it had run as an application the properties file went to C:\Users\<userName>\AppData\VirtualStore\Program Files\SageTV

So this is why you went thru the entire configuration again including the tuner config. The only way that would have been avoided is if you had configured the service to log in as the same user that was logged in when you ran SageTV as a service and that user ID would also need to have a password or the service would not run. The other way around this is to disable UAC first thing after a Windows install. Another way is in the Properties box of the .exe to tell it run in Compatibility mode of a previous OS. (Like XP).

For the local UI on your HD200 you can choose this on each HD200 just like you would on any client. This allows you to run the default STV on one of them and SageMC on another or the same UI on all of them.

Gerry

[cjalphonso]

Thanks for this lesson on Windows 7

So after ingesting all this information it appears to me that the easiest way to setup SageTV for 7 or vista is to not run the SageTV.exe but run the Sageservice instead, this way it will setup the directories as it is supposed to because it will have the correct permissions.
Here is my current plan of action for this evening.

1. Start Sageservice
2. Run Sagetv.exe on the local machine
3. Configure the UI to my liking.
4. Plug in HD200
5. Have it find and connect to the sage server
6. Direct its UI, to the configured UI from step 3 if not already done.
7. Enjoy SageTV.......
8. Once running correctly, install SageMC as indicated in its instructions.
9. Enjoy SageMC.

Does this sound like a good course of action? Let me know if you see some flaws.
Thanks again, I really appreciate all the help.

[gplasky]

That plan should work for you. Just as a "heads up" pay attention to al the parts and pieces of SageMC. You'll want the full install download. You'll also want to get pre-release 17 of the STV and the 1.44 Phoenix jar that goes with it. (Not to complicate matters but if you're looking for fanart you have an install of BMT to do BEFORE installing SageMC. Or just make sure the 1.44 Phoenix jar is the last piece installed.)
And as always-STOP the SageTV service before performing any plugin installs or editing any .properties files.

Gerry

[cjalphonso]

Thanks, the SageMC will be on hold until I have everything else to my liking. I'll report back on my progress.

[cjalphonso]

OK, I followed my plan from above and everything worked out flawlessly. Both the local machine and the hd200 are seeing and interacting perfectly

I had one hickup, I ran into a problem of Sage not being able to see my WHS machine with all of my movies and pictures and stuff. It was rather strange because I could browse to the directories and even see the movie directories, but Sage would still not find any of the movies, pictures, music etc.

I was able to resolve this problem by using the sageservice application and having it login with the same user name and password I use for this machine. Once I did that it saw and found everything and I was able to use UNC paths for my import directories.

Thanks again to all the Vista/Windows 7 guru's who helped getting this up and running.

[Rico66]

Originally Posted by gplasky

So this is why you went thru the entire configuration again including the tuner config. The only way that would have been avoided is if you had configured the service to log in as the same user that was logged in when you ran SageTV as a service and that user ID would also need to have a password or the service would not run. The other way around this is to disable UAC first thing after a Windows install. Another way is in the Properties box of the .exe to tell it run in Compatibility mode of a previous OS. (Like XP).

Another option to workaround UAC virtualization is to give regular user accounts write access to the SageTV directory. The easiest way to achieve this is to create the target directory (either program files\sagetv or program files (x86)\sagetv) manually prior to installing Sage and apply Full Access rights to Authenticated Users. This can also be done afterwards, but then you need to make sure that the access rights get applied recursively.

By doing this the sageclient.properties file get stored within the regular sagetv\sagetv directory (instead of the VirtualStore).

[joe123]

Hi.

I have a similar question regarding running SageTV in service mode only.

I have a PC dedicated to running SagetTV and don't use the PC for viewing anything. Pretty much dedicated as a SageTV server.

I have a SageTV HD Theater and 2 MVPs for displays on 3 TVs. I been running SageTV for years in full UI mode on the PC server.

Will I get faster or better perfomance if I switch to running SageTV in service mode only? I don't need the SageTV UI on the PC.

[MattHelm]

Originally Posted by joe123

Will I get faster or better perfomance if I switch to running SageTV in service mode only? I don't need the SageTV UI on the PC.

I don't think it will be any faster (maybe a hair, as no GUI is launched), but there are advantages (and disadvantages) to running in service mode.

Biggest advantage I know of, as it can auto restart.

The only disadvantage I know of on XP, is some addons need a client to run (autocompress and ???).

[joe123]

Originally Posted by MattHelm

I don't think it will be any faster (maybe a hair, as no GUI is launched), but there are advantages (and disadvantages) to running in service mode.

Biggest advantage I know of, as it can auto restart.

The only disadvantage I know of on XP, is some addons need a client to run (autocompress and ???).

Ouch, I need the autocompress

[MattHelm]

Originally Posted by joe123

Ouch, I need the autocompress

Yes, I did too. So what I did (have server running all along, is leave the client running on the server. It doesn't take that much RAM, and keeps the bonus of running in server mode.

[Fuzzy]

You could also run to a different service based auto-compress method, such as SageJobQueue, which doesn't require a client instance to function. Takes a bit of cinfiguration, but is VERY well featured. Also would let you move processes to other systems, if you so desire, as well.